Amid shakeup to amateur department, Astros retaining top national scout

As new scouting director Mike Elias works with general manager Jeff Luhnow on assembling a new-look scouting staff for next season, at least one top evaluator is returning.

Elias said Friday that the Astros are bringing back national crosschecker David Post “on a long-term basis,” which he clarified as a multi-year deal for what is traditionally the No. 2 spot in the amateur scouting department.

“He is widely regarded as one of the top talent evaluators in baseball, so we’re really happy to have him back,” Elias said of Post, who was brought in under now departed scouting director Bobby Heck. “He’s a huge asset and a key fixture in this department.”

As for the rest of the staff, it’s a work in progress early in the season of turnover, but expect considerably change in the hierarchy that is topped with Elias and Post and then regional supervisors and area scouts.

“We made some decisions to basically restructure the department to make it more efficient, having elite personnel in the right spots, and we’ll probably end up adding some talent from around the industry,” Elias said. “The whole company has been restructuring ever since it was sold. I think it’s just the natural healthy thing businesses do. This is a part of that.

“There’s fresh faces, there’s new blood that’s going to be coming in — I think that will help — but this is also a department that has some of the elite scouts in the industry.”

Major League Baseball’s scouting director meetings are next week in New York, and the timing of Elias’ promotion from special assistant last weekend was so that he could have some decisions made by the time those begin.